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The
Ark-La-Tex has many things
of great worth. High value homes around large cities, classic cars, valuable sports
cars, race horses, railroads, prime rural acreage, rich widows, doctors, lawyers,
banks and department stores, to name a few. You name it, someone living here in
this vastly diversified area will have it.
This story of a valuable horse
caught my eye several years back. It seems a farmer and land-owner neighboring
along the railroad tracks somewhere between Texarkana
and Tyler, or
maybe Sulphur
Springs and Paris, had a ‘less-than-desirable’,
broken down horse he wanted to get rid of. So he devised a plan where-in the horse
would get run over by a freight train and maybe, just maybe he could sell that
horse to the railroad.
So, one night, beyond his control the horse got
free and roamed the tracks. It got hit and killed by a fast moving ‘blue-streak’
merchandise train. Later, the owner filed a very high million dollar claim against
the railroad. He claimed he had lost a high value quarter-horse, a ‘thorough-bred’
race horse with a good potential of winning millions of dollars at the derby.
And he was, holding the railroad responsible for his present and future losses.
After
the railroad engineer on the train reported hitting a horse, the company Claims
Agent met with the engineer. He was told, as the train quickly approached the
horse that night, the headlight was oscillating back and forth; the horn blowing
loudly, and the engineer said, with his bright headlight, he could see the horse
from a long way off. It acted so scared, like it wanted very badly to move. The
horse jerked and pulled at it’s feet, but seemed really, really too frightened
to move; frozen in place.
Now, the next order of business was to go with
camera, find the dead horse and examine it, thoroughly. Like, examine the ‘thorough-bred’
very thoroughly.
The Claim Agent’s report and photos revealed the horse
had large nails driven into all four hoofs. Someone had nailed the poor horse’s
feet to the cross-ties on the track so that it couldn’t move and would surely
be hit and killed.
No wonder the poor nag was jerking, jumping and trying
to pull free, but couldn’t move. Claim denied..... And the owner was later charged
with filing a false claim and ‘Cruelty To An Animal’.
© Nolan
Maxie
"Stories of the Ark-La-Tex"
May 1, 2011
Column
piddlinacres@consolidated.net
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